9/3 Semiotics and Whitman

English 420 notes: 9/3

By Mason Bissada

“Arbitrariness” - random, subjective, irrational

• Tree: herbaceous, woody plant OR marijuana OR shoe tree OR tree of life OR family tree
• Word is not intrinsic, but it is contingent (dependent on other variables)
• Cat: gato, chat
• No reason why the word “cat” should signify a cat

“Binary opposition” - you only know what something means by knowing what it doesn’t mean

• You can’t understand X without knowing about Y
• Frost- “yellow wood”
  • Not green
  • Walking in autumn as opposed to summer
  • Old, as opposed to young
• “Not-test”
  • Locate patterns, contexts and codes

3-step semiotic test

• 1) identify significant/dank words
  • What are the interesting words of a text?
  • Ex: Frost -“yellow”
• 2) not-test
  • What is “not yellow”?
  • Gives binary oppositions
• 3) Locate patterns, contexts and codes
  • Organizing signifiers across a text

“The Wasteland” - T.S. Elliot

• “April is the cruelest month…”
• “Drowned sailor”
  • Wet
  • Dry

Walt Whitman - “Leaves of Grass”

• Dank words: Celebrate, Assume, I, you, Atom, Belonging
• I/you
  • I = speaker/poet
  • You = reader
  • I = 1855 gay white male poet from Brooklyn
  • You = now, 2019, NOT
  • Distance between I and you is going to be no more (what I assume you assume, exchange atoms)
  • Whitman promises differences will be negated
  • Whitman comes back to life when you read the poem
  • Poem starts by declaring its purpose
• Loafe
  • Not loafe?
  • Definition: to be lazy
  • Not loafe: to be proactive, energetic
    • Soccer field, gym, place of business
    • Social state
  • Whitman is establishing an identity for himself that contrasts with typical American worker
• Summer
  • As opposed to winter
  • Life as opposed to death
• Spear of grass
  • Pointed, blunt, same, common, not poetic
  • Not: leaf, flower, varied, special, poetic
  • Whitman is going to dig deeper into the ordinary
  • The poem’s realm is the common
• Perfume
  • Fragrance, enjoyable connotation, used on our bodies to smell good
  • Our bodies smell bad without perfume
  • Better to cover up than to be smelly
  • Not: not covered, the smell of myself, exposed, nude, pure, untouched
• Whitman gives a conflict between culture and nature
  • Traditionally, Americans believe nature has to be productive and extracted.
  • Whitman says no; nature is the refuge from society, where truth is.